• Epiphyllum (4:19)
• Prayer Wheel (4:58)
• Thurston County (7:00)
• The Androgyne (3:08)
• Rod Poole's Gradual Ascent to Heaven (18:35)
• The Divine Homegirl (4:22)
• X Change(s) (4:16)
• The Nomad's Home (3:45)
• Amniotica (2:48)
• Lord & Lady (5:00)
• Dreams in the Mirror (1:38)
• Interruption (1:51)
• The Seedcaster (3:16)
• The Liberator (3:16)
• Cymbidium (3:51)

Artists

• Nels Cline
  Guitar

Reviews

• Pivotal question for today's multistylistic musician: How do you keep versatility from turning into superficial eclecticism? Nels Cline long ago proved his versatility--look what a galvanizing effect his presence has had in the group Wilco, remarkable when compared with his other music from pop session work, jazz (including John Coltrane covers) and free improvisation to noise and his hard-to-describe band Nels Cline Singers. In his gibbon swings from one genre to another, and in the process of blending them together, Cline retains his center of gravity. Perhaps that's because he has a bealthy sense of humility and a funny bone--refreshing, given that with chops like his he could justify being a self-righteous, self-serious creep.

  But the good humor--coupled with great taste--keeps Cline in check. On Coward, the centrifugal force of the guitarist's many interests never seems haphazard or unmotivated. There's a bit more ECM to the overall mix than I might have expected, evoking Ralph Towner and Egberto Gismonti in their halcyon days; unlike ECM, though, the sound is never unnecessarily bathed in reverb. Cline doubles acoustic guitar notes with multitracked "autoharp/zither things" on the epic 18-and-a-half minutes of "Rod Poole's Gradual Ascent To Heaven," producing a density of string textures and shimmering just-off-pitch harmonies pierced by brilliant single-note runs. With her recent string fixation, PJ Harvey should consider deploying Cline.

  Some pieces, like the slide-intensive "The Nomad's Home," have a more song-like organization. Elswhere, there are more ambient, droning excursions, including the bookends that open and end the disc ("Epiphyllum" and "Cymbidium"), while the episodic "Onan Suite" (there's the self-deprecating sense of humor) sports some vent-like, thwacking noise passages, mixed with radiant strumming and '60s psych and progressive rock (Pink Floyd looms large in the dreadnought chording), and a hilarious, ripping finale that begs to be heard. On the post-Branca electric romp "Thurston County," Cline nods at Thurston Moore with chiming strums beyond the nut, crystalline slide and a great anthemic jam that might be the bed for a vintage Sonic Youth song. -John Corbett
  

  Downbeat [2/1/09]
• Watching guitarist Nels Cline attack his electric axe with an egg whisker at his 2005 International Festival Musique Actuelle Victoriaville performance helps explain the perennial question of how he does what he does, though no single performance sheds a strong enough spotlight on the chameleon-like guitarist's skill. Even when all the guitars and effects used on Coward—Cline's first solo guitar album in his 30-plus year career—are documented, there's still the nagging feeling that even that degree of detail doesn't tell the whole story.

  Perhaps it's best left that way. Although most guitarists eventually take the plunge into making a solo recording, few create classics where, rather than being measured against their other releases, the solo album becomes the gold standard against which all others are gauged. John Abercrombie's Characters is one, and while Coward shares little stylistically or aesthetically with that guitarist's 1977 ECM disc, Cline has often shared a strong affinity with Abercrombie's ability to morph into any musical context, while never losing the definers that make him who he is.

  Characters reflected Abercrombie's musical position at the time, but was early days; today Cline occupies a far bigger space. Equal parts skronky noise improv, spare ECM-like lyricism, and folksy roots, Cline's as influenced by Jimi Hendrix as he is Jim Hall. Coward refracts the guitarist's many stylistic markers through a personal prism, creating colors and compositional landscapes that make perfect sense, even as they traverse dynamics less likely explored when he's playing in group contexts.

  "Epiphyllum" and "Cymbidium" are dense, seemingly static soundscapes that, respectively, open Coward on a dark, foreboding note belying things to come while closing it on a somewhat more optimistic note. In between, there's a wealth of evocative writing—ranging from miniatures to lengthy, episodic suites—and the revelation of a rich, sophisticated harmonic sensibility, and textural combinations of instruments and electronics that are no less important than the writing itself. The combination of acoustic and electric guitars on the arpeggio-driven "Prayer Wheel" clearly references Characters, as well as Abercrombie's duets with Ralph Towner. The oblique electronics and abstruse finger-picking of "Thurston Country," which lead to pulsing, acoustic guitar-driven strumming, stray closer to Wilco, while the zither, banjo uke, Turkish 12-string and other more exotic instruments that augment straight and prepared 6- and 12-string acoustic guitars on the epic, 18-minute "Rod Poole's Gradual Ascent to Heaven" create a steel-string-driven orchestra with a strong focus on Cline's rich predilection for form over freedom.

  Like the best solo guitar albums, Coward transcends being merely an exercise in the instrument's vast potential—though it is that, too. Impossible to create without Cline's unequivocal virtuosity, the largely acoustic Coward remains about everything but guitaristic acumen. Instead it's an instrumental masterpiece, further positioning Cline as one of today's most open-minded composers, players and musical conceptualists. Despite its not inconsiderable challenges, it retains a surprisingly broad appeal, making it a true classic that will likely keep aspiring guitarists scratching their heads for years to come.-by John Kelman

  John Kelman
  All About Jazz [2/4/09]
• "...Nels Cline’s strangely titled Coward, which is anything but uncourageous, supplies an outlet for Cline’s solo overdubs within a broad-minded auto-communication. Fans of Cline’s instrumental group, The Nels Cline Singers, should note that this effort is equally acoustic and electrifying, and less jazz-cacophonous than his trio settings. Cline has been contemplating a solo overdub undertaking for almost 25 years and the venture distinctively balances his various aptitudes as guitarist, improviser, composer, and technician. Like Alex Cline, Nels Cline immortalizes his mother’s memory, most consciously with the droning electric ending statement, “Cymbidium,” which commemorates his late mother’s penchant for growing orchids. Opening movement, “Epiphyllum,” is also a drone excursion that layers loops, electronics, and electric six-string. Both offerings cradle low-lying dissonance which crackles and snaps with distortion.
  
  As with his brother’s songs, Nels Cline’s material often contains an emotional charge, most conspicuous during introspective, acoustic numbers such as dobro/guitar duet “The Nomad’s Home,” “The Androgyne,” and “Prayer Wheel,” an older conception that may be Cline’s most melodically accessible appearance, suggestive of Ralph Towner’s ECM releases. The compact disc’s pièce de résistance is the nearly nineteen-minute memorial, “Rod Poole’s Gradual Ascent to Heaven,” which honors the Los Angeles microtonal guitarist who was brutally and senselessly murdered close to his home two years ago. During the extended narrative, Cline pairs his six- and twelve-string acoustic guitars with banjo uke, tenor ukulele, zither, fretless cigar box cigar and a Turkish twelve-string guitar. While it may seem so many instruments would smother the tune’s minimalist nature, the strings are organized at distant posts within the eccentrically inclined structure, allowing Cline’s penetrating single-note runs to conjure sadness, anger, inner strength, and celebration. While the realization is purely Cline’s, at times he elicits his lost friend Poole as well as antecedents such as John Fahey and Sandy Bull.
  
  “Rod Poole’s Gradual Ascent to Heaven” is just one of the complexities on Coward. Without question, the approximately eighteen-minute, six-part “Onan (Suite)” is Cline’s most prominent elaboration, a diverse sonic showstopper that Cline humorously declares is the most self-indulgent endeavor he’s ever done. The episodic, somewhat tongue-in-cheek audio collage includes unleashed, pummeling passages, a buzzing psychedelic/noise rock protraction, disconcerting tatters of disembodied voices, luminous guitar strumming, and a waggish, shredding finale that would put Trey Gunn down for the count..." -by Doug Simpson
  
  
  Audiophile Audition [2/5/2009]
• If the guitarist Nels Cline had joined the revered and more than semi-popular rock band Wilco in his early 20s, rather than in his late 40s, he might never be making solo-guitar albums on the side like “Coward.” This record reflects a far-and-wide aesthetic imagination, one that’s been broadening for a long time.
  
  Mr. Cline’s playing has seriously mixed blood, and when he records multiple versions of himself on electric and acoustic guitars and about a dozen other stringed instruments, he becomes exponentially more mongrelized. He does his version of John Cipollina’s wide runs and fast vibrato; he likes crying slide guitar glissandi, looped clumps of distortion and amplifier hum, the clashing overtone sounds of Sonic Youth and the slow, deliberate, almost monastic music of traditional Japanese koto players. But he doesn’t let anything rest in one place. Meditative and minimal as these pieces may be, they’re written with rigor. Hear them once, and you might only be lulled, but one more time and you’ll hear the purpose and symmetry.
  
  “Rod Poole’s Gradual Ascent to Heaven” is the imposing accomplishment here. It begins and ends with long zither chords, and over the 18 minutes between, links together slowly evolving figures, building and ebbing. Mr. Poole, an experimental English guitarist who lived and worked in Los Angeles and who was a friend of Mr. Cline’s, was murdered in 2007; a piece like this seems the right kind of homage to someone who had the patience to fully absorb long-form music. But then much of this record strikes a similar tone: it sounds like both an advertisement and an elegy for deep listening. -By BEN RATLIFF
  
  
  Ben Ratliff
  The New York Times [February, 9th 2009]
• The title of this solo recording by Nels Cline deserves explanation, for it is not yellow, reticent, soulless, or timid music. Coward refers to the murder of Cline's friend and guitarist Rod Poole, who was mindlessly slain in 2007. While there are those who believe things happen for a reason, indiscriminate killing without conscience is not one of them. Cline's predilection for multi-tracking electronic based instruments is here on many levels, but you also hear much of his rich acoustic guitar, often overdubbed in duets with himself, and beautifully rendered in the best European or classicist sense of chamber music. There's also an inherent sound/style reminiscent of the genius Ralph Towner, and in the duo format the work he did with John Abercrombie, or even the late acoustic guitarist John Martyn. Cline's fertile mind and extreme musicianship pull both pretexts off with startling results, as the interplay he employs with the ensembles he performs with is all in his head, executed here firmly and clearly by himself. The CD is bookended by looped electronic soundscapes "Epiphyllum" and "Cymbidium," very much in the vein of Brian Eno's Music for Airports. Wilco fans will relate to "Thurston County" with its electrified plucky themes, twangy inserts, and cartoonish phrasings. The massive six-part suite "Onan" weaves through latent volcanic rumblings with alien invaders overhead, an elegant renaissance traipsing love dance, shards of vocal dream blips under a shimmering facade, an interruptive freakout, buzzing troupe marching orders, clanging guitar signals, war like cues, and a rock epilogue parallel to the Byrds. Acoustically, Cline's inclination toward Towner's climactic approach is most evident during the stairstep construct with multiple strings during the 18-minute tribute "Rod Poole's Gradual Ascent to Heaven," as tearful waterfall chords tumble in chiming, funereal, and celebratory fashion. "The Divine Homegirl" is reprised from a previous recording, a guitar self-duet in Baroque style, "X Change(s)" is improvised, abstract, scattered, noisy, and percussive, while "The Nomad's Home" has Cline on the dobro and slide guitar, slipping through a bluesy, country field patch. At times he overdubs autoharp, zither "things," a sruti box, the Quintronics drum buddy, a kaosillator or megamouth, whatever they are. While these instruments change the textures and nuances of the pieces, the acoustic guitar is the most prevalent and attractive tool Cline wields. This sounds like a very personal and emotional project, certainly one that is rendered from the heart, and must be listened to with the challenged bravery and wide open ears that ignorant, frightened people and those afraid of living life will never, ever experience. -by Michael G. Nastos
  
  Michael Nastos
  All Music Guide [2/10/09]
• 
  Nels Cline has been sounding like multiple guitarists in concert for so many years that giving him a solo album with studio overdubs is almost unfair.
  
  Yet the local favorite who rose from the improvised and experimental music incubators of the Smell and the now-shuttered Rocco to the amphitheater circuit with Wilco did not take this break from his day job to embark on another cathartic trip through a free-jazz electrical storm. In a bit of a surprise, much of “Coward” offers little of the fire-breathing noise working outs from Cline’s past and instead plays like and elegantly crafted valentine to the acoustic guitar. At over 18 minutes, the album’s swirling centerpiece, “Rod Poole’s Gradual Ascent to Heaven” (inspired by the slain LA guitarist), casts a hypnotic spell while recalling the raga excursions of Robbie Basho, and “The Nomad’s Home” flirts with the back-porch slide-work of Leo Kottke.
  
  But Cline hasn’t left all of his plugged-in tricks behind. The aptly named “Thurston County” mixes a Sonic Youthian churn with squiggling electronics and a weepy pedal steel. Elsewhere Cline’s taste for stylistic mash-ups reaches its peak with the six-part “Onan Suite,” where the shape shifting guitarist seamlessly moves from the hallucinatory atmospherics of “Amniotica” to the guttural fuzz-funk of “Seedcaster” to the twitchy indie-rock drive of “The Liberator” with a host of unclassifiable tours in between. Cline’s outside-leaning tendencies may have intimidated some music fans, but with this challenging yet often beautiful record, they have nothing to fear. -by Chris Barton
  
  LA Times [2/11/09]